the view

8:30pm - the view from my dorm room window.  (this city is beautiful.)

whenever i see chimneys like this i always think of this scene in mary poppins (is it just me?):

over the past week we've been working A LOT to set up the offices and get ready for the kids to come to the program on sunday.  the craziness won't end until tuesday, really, when the students get on a normal schedule.  when we aren't working, we're out eating and drinking and laughing with our awesome staff.  i'm really loving the people i'm working with this year.  but you know...all i want right now is a day where i can lie in my bed and alternate between watching west wing reruns and reading my book.  i've been spending from 9am to midnight with PEOPLE for the past week...and we all know how big of an introvert i can be.  it's been really fun - and we have to soak up as much time as possible with each other before the kids get in the way - but i would looooooove a lazy day.

hooooooooray!

at 3pm british summer time, my co-dean (and new best friend) liz and i started refreshing the new york times' webpage; the supreme court convened at 10am eastern time to issue the health care ruling.  when the new york times didn't have any information posted, we moved to cnn, which asserted at 3:06 that the individual mandate had been overturned.  sadness in the office.

5 minutes later every other news source asserted the exact opposite.  joy in the office!  explaining of our health care system to the brits!  frantically reading everything we could!  one website included this: "cnn should have waited another 5 minutes to be sure they got the decision right."  ha!

i imagine that some poor cnn reporter got fired today.

a couple hours later one of my sweet students from this year posted on facebook: "what's all the craziness about?  thank you [insert my name here]!" and she linked to a video i showed in class that explains the health care law in a really understandable way.  with cartoons.  17 year olds love cartoons.  her facebook shoutout totally made my night.  i'll post the video here so you, too, can understand what the heck is in this bill:



(kelly - this is required viewing.  obama loves people!  he wants the government to help take care of them - and we'll all benefit!  vote for obama!)

“Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women.”
—Nora Ephron, 1996 commencement address at Wellesley College

thoughts on shorts

like perhaps many women, i have a love-hate relationship with my legs.  good old legs, you take me places.  silly legs, you are larger than i would like.

i do not like showing off my legs.

but then i started running, as you may remember, and my yoga pants would be falling off me as i ran - not enough elastic in the waist - and were prettttttty warm for running.  so i started running in an old pair of gym shorts that i bought during my two season stint coaching jv girls softball.  but then they were too long and would ride up on my legs and be uncomfortable.  SO I BOUGHT SOME RUNNING SHORTS.  i can't believe it either.  they are short.  they are cute!  but they are SHORT.  i wore them for the first time today and it was pretty awesome - no riding up, little pocket in the waistband for my keys, and i didn't see anyone i knew which showing a lot of leg.  victory on all counts.

now i'm back in my dorm room getting ready to shower and go to dinner while some low budget movie involving child actors films outside my window.  actual quote from the director (? is a director allowed to wear a tube top while filming a children's movie?): "look meaner, ellie.  even meaner!  now maybe put your hands on your head and make fun of her hat!  keep going!  keep going!"  oh dear lord.

this kid is an angsty teenager WITH ACTUAL TALENT.  OMG i love it.

yesterday: sitting outside in the garden at my favorite pub in oxford, reading until my other friends got there, because YES, you can do that in england and not be weird.  heaven!

aaaaaand i inexplicably woke up at 6:45 this morning, after going to bed at midnight.

on second thought, since the sun rose at 4:48am (not a misprint), perhaps that is why.  my dorm room is awesome, with two sets of windows...and what i mistakenly thought were pretty good curtains...

first day of work today!

royal ascot!

on saturday vin (a duke rugby friend who lives in london) and i went to royal ascot with some of her london friends!

fascinators required (seriously - or hats)! (vin's is hidden a bit.)  i debated between a smaller purple one and this one...and decided to go ALL OUT.  i mean, how many times can a girl wear a fascinator?

if you were wondering, i did not look ridiculous, as everyone else was wearing crazy headpieces, too.  i DID keep running into things with my fascinator since it added a lot to my height.  oops.

the queen comes to royal ascot every year.  this is her parading in - she's wearing the sassy green dress - i loved it.

queen!

um, i have never seen our president in real life, but i got a good 5 minutes worth of the queen.  it was awesome.

i would also like to note that the queen was surrounded by...2 security guards.  2!!  and there were no metal detectors or anything when we entered the grounds.  this would NOT FLY IN AMERICA.  apparently everyone loves the queen, though, so no biggie.  she just goes out in the world.

vin's the only one of us who won any money betting on the horse races.  she won 6 pounds and 80 pence.  big time.

we watched this horse named black caviar win his 22nd straight race.  it was incredible - we were on the final stretch and he just BUSTED INTO TOP GEAR and pulled away from all the other horses at the last minute.

the odds on black caviar were 1-7.  NOT 7-1.  1-7, as in, if you bet 1 pound on him you will win 1/7th of a pound.  i had never seen this before.  vin did not bet on black caviar; she won her money in another race by betting on a horse named waffle.  yes!  waffle!  there was also a horse in that race named scarf.  clearly we picked our horses based on their names.

perusing the odds...aka another awesome fascinator shot...

yay!  thanks to vin for an awesome day!!

i've arrived!  i got into london at about 11am british time (i'll be changing the time stamp on the blog to reflect the time when i'm actually writing), and made my way through border control with no problem.  unless, by "problem," you mean i was forced to hear a 5 minute lecture from the border control guard about why the us invaded iraq and libya, but isn't getting involved in syria.  tip for better living: when asked, don't say you teach us government - pick ANY OTHER SUBJECT.  ugh.  sorry, dude.  i agree with your concerns but i can't do anything about them.

i made my way to my friend vin's apartment, where i internetted and ate and napped and read my book and showered, and when vin gets home we're going out to dinner because, yes, i'm hungry again.

let me tell you though, that i had the best international flight OF MY LIFE.  i went into it with a new attitude - who cares how much i actually sleep - i can sleep at vin's when i arrive!  i watched my week with marilyn, which entertained me.  i read almost half of room, which is also entertaining me.  i ate a delish meal.*  then i (professional move!!) put in my earplugs and proceeded to actually sleep for most of the rest of the flight.  i'd say i got about 4 hours of sleep, but compared to some of my past experiences this is a miracle.

thoughts on earplugs before this year's AP reading: eww they feel weird and don't help too much.
thoughts on earplugs during this year's AP reading: why yes, if you're offering i will take some.  um...i am so much less distracted!  i can focus!  the sound of people coughing and chairs scraping isn't grating on my nerves while i grade for 8 hours a day!
thoughts on earplugs during this flight: perhaps they will drown out the background noise of the plane.  omg they are!  now i will sleep.

in short, i am an earplugs convert.


*i have learned not to request a vegetarian meal on international flights.  it is always the overcooked, overly cheesy pasta dish that is an option for the rest of the plane - they just deliver yours first so they don't run out.  order the ASIAN vegetarian meal.  the flight attendant confirmed my belief that it is the best meal that delta makes.  i had: sautéed spinach, rice, and curried tofu.  a gingery carrot and cucumber salad.  fruit.  and then normal things like cheese and crackers.  it was actually delicious.  i am full of tips today, people.  listen up!!

i'm off!

in a couple hours i fly to england; i arrive in london on friday morning, and i'll be there through sunday morning, when i take the bus to oxford to start work.  friday will involve me sleeping a lot, saturday will involve me wearing a fascinator (omg, i know - i'll take lots of pictures!), and sunday will involve me being so excited to see summer friends that i talk louder than is polite in that country.  (i know you're so surprised to hear that.)

i'm excited about everything but the flight (ugh - long...and i don't sleep well on planes) and customs (ugh - customs officials SCARE ME), but they are obviously necessary hurdles to jump on the way to my summer of fun.

internet access will be spotty for the next couple days, but i'll try to check in!  on monday i should be set up with internet in my room in oriel college, and thus have reliable internet access for the rest of the summer.

talk to you all soon!

what i'm listening to right now

"speechless," by lady gaga:



on our last night in salt lake city we went to a bar with karaoke with lots of other AP readers - this is apparently a "last night at the AP reading" tradition.  um, people were basically professional karaoke-ers - every person that went up there was better than the last, and one woman sang this song.  how had i NEVER heard it before?  answer: apparently it didn't make it on the radio.  i'm sad about that, because i love it.

kelly sent this to me, and i love it!  30 books everyone should read before turning 30.  i've read 17 of them and i'm stumbling through an 18th, cat's cradle, as we speak.  (a list like this makes a girl feel good about the reading she's done, even though most if it was at the request of an english teacher.)  i would say YES YES YES - READ THIS! about the road and ender's game and middlesex and to kill a mockingbird, only one of which a teacher made me read.  they are ones that will stick with you.

some i won't read, i know, but i added a few from this list to my list.  specifically: the secret history, jesus' son, the sun also rises, ghost world, and invisible man.  stay tuned to see if and when i actually get around to reading them...my "to read" list is LONNNNNG and the list of months until i turn 30 is short (june, july, august, september, october, NOVEMBER AHHH).

HA!  making fun of england.  i enjoy it.

my favorite part:

Meanwhile, The Telegraph reports that there will be animals. Not awesome animals, like lions and hippogriffs and friendly dogs [Edit: there will apparently be friendly dogs; "three sheep dogs," to be exact], but boring and surprisingly mean animals like geese. 
Specifically: nine geese. 
They're only springing for nine geese.

gchat conversation, 10:50pm:

Rebecca: okay, i need to shower and then finish this episode of white collar and then try to go to sleep
i've been kind of wired today
and i just ate shake shack

me: you are mom right now
too wired to go to sleep
DON'T VACUUM*

Rebecca: zoommmmmmmmers
that is how i feel

me: hahahaha

Rebecca: i need to run around the house three times**
did you ever have to do that?

me: NO
that was only you

Rebecca: i was threatened with it A LOT

me: you were
and you had to do it at least once

Rebecca: oh, totally
okay, off i go

*our mom inexplicably gains energy as the night wears on, and has been known to vacuum the living room at like 10pm, while everyone else is lying on the couch watching tv.

**this is what my sister was threatened with as a child when she had too much energy and was driving people crazy.  THE APPLE DOESN'T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE.

tragically uncentered photo of the mormon tabernacle choir and their 11,600 pipe organ:

we went to the public rehearsal of the choir on thursday night, and they were breathtakingly good.  they sang "when the saints go marching in," which (i realized upon listening to it this time) includes the line "when the moon turns red with blood." of book of revelation - you are so creepy.

they also sang "you raise me up," of josh grobin fame, which was gorgeous (i thought of you, joey, as i do every time i hear this song!), and then they sang some churchy song that i didn't know.

though i didn't hear it this time around, when i came to this same rehearsal four years ago they sang "battle hymn of the republic," which was an experience i will never forget.  it's worth a listen now because it's so beautiful.  (this one's for nora, a fellow "battle hymn of the republic" lover!)



you should also know that the choir is halfway to an egot, as they have an emmy and a grammy.  tracy jordan would be jealous.

and we're done!

i graded for 52 hours and read 1,525 essay this week.  it was at times quite painful, but overall better than two years ago - working on four different questions helped break up the week and didn't make it nearly as monotonous as it could have been.  and i bought myself a laptop!  (i will make, after taxes, almost exactly as much money as my new laptop cost.)  so you know what?  totally worth it.

tonight: karaoke with my AP posse.  i will not be singing, but this group is hilarious when we're just hanging out in a bar, so i actually can't imagine what tonight will be like.  hoo-ray.

iphone pictures from salt lake city

mormon temple!  pretty/weird.  huge fence around it to keep the riff raft (like me) out.

view from my hotel room - cute little western city streets and beautiful mountains in the background.

my new friend katie and our big beers.  so...beers are plentiful here.  my posse has gone to a different bar every night and had some awesome local beers.  sure this is the mormon capital of the world, but there's also a pretty normal-people social scene.

based on this view alone, i understand why brigham young decided to stop here.  i also learned that the REAL reason he stopped here was that the valley where salt lake city is was neutral territory between four indian tribes' land and he could populate it without making the native americans angry.  pretty strategic, that brigham.

tomorrow is the last day of the reading, and unlike in pretty much every year in the past (to hear the talk at the lunch tables), the AP government reading is going slower than anticipated and we'll probably be kept all the way until 5pm.  UGH.  two years ago when i was here we were released before lunch on the last day.  i don't know if i have another 275 essays in me (that's how many i read today).

my grandma norma died on sunday.  she lived next door to me from when i was born until i was in 4th grade and we were very close; she was absolutely the best grandma a girl could ask for.

when dad called i had a good long cry, but it wasn't a surprise and she was ready, i think.  my dad and uncle and aunt have written the most beautiful obituary ever.  for now i'll just share part of it; at some point i'll have my own thoughts on the subject but at the moment it's still a little too raw to talk about.

Throughout her life, Norma was passionate about both music and the theater, rediscovering the joy of performance in her later years at Seabury. She had a quick wit, a wry sense of humor, and a deep sense of social justice. Her positions on the important issues of the day were never ambiguous, and she loved to discuss and debate current topics. 
Norma continued teaching, instilling a love of literature and music in her children and nine grandchildren, who were her greatest pride. She enjoyed playing games, and her challengers were justifiably proud on those rare occasions when they bested her in a Scrabble match. The family plans a private celebration of her life later in the summer in North Carolina. Although Norma enjoyed gardening, in lieu of flowers you may honor her memory by voting Democratic.

though i've now read it a dozen times, i still can't get through it without tearing up - it's so perfectly HER.

my aunt lisa unearthed this photo that i'd never seen before.  that's me on the right in the red pajamas, gazing up at my grandma as she leads us in some sort of sing along.  i love that you can see our happiness.

it's 11:08pm salt lake city time = 1:08am atlanta time.  willis and i are chatting online.

me: i'm going to bed now.  you should, too!
willis: i'm making a ragu.  it's simmering away.
me: oh dear lord.  of course you are.

...only willis would be making a ragu at 1am.  how often do we use that phrase: "only willis."

AP grading fun

so...there are 575 people at the AP reading who are scoring the "operational exam," which is for the 200,000 kids who took the AP government exam in the US on the scheduled date.  each person grades one of the four essay questions...from 8am to 5pm for seven days straight.  two years ago i read over 2,000 essays, all on the same topic.

you see why i needed a year off from this madness.

this year i am grading the international exam, which is a different set of four essay questions given to students abroad...the questions are different because the time difference is so much that they fear kids will cheat.  there are 8 people reading this international exam.  8!  i am one of them.  apparently it is random, but i feel special anyway.  we are in our own room WITH A WINDOW, the only readers who are so lucky.  i look at the mountains and watch the tram drive back and forth on the street next to our building.  this is the only fun i have.

only 2,000 kids took the international exam, so instead of spending all week reading one question's answers, we will score two (or more) questions.

over the course of yesterday and today i read 490 essays* and that was apparently my share of that question, as we finished all the exams this afternoon!  tomorrow we will be re-trained on another question from this international exam and begin scoring it.  i had to sign a confidentiality agreement this year, stating that i wouldn't disclose the international questions, as presumably they will be reused in the future.  to this i say: no one i know gives a shit about these questions anyway, so it shouldn't be hard to keep this information confidential.  at the end of the day today all of our notes were shredded.  serious business.

so...this is what i'll be doing through saturday.  be very very jealous.  oh, this sounds horrible?  well, it kind of is, but the posse i have attached myself to is awesome and we've been to a different bar every night.  more on that later.  salt lake city might not SEEM like the party capital of the world, but you haven't been to salt lake city.


*"miss claire, how do you know that you read 490 essays?"  well, dear reader, in order to stay sane you make a tally mark on a scrap piece of paper every time you finish a packet of essays - in the operational exam a packet is 25 kids, in the international exam a packet is inexplicably 10 kids.  DON'T ASK QUESTIONS.  (that's really the first rule of grading this exam.)  then every day you try to beat the previous day's total, thus feeling good about yourself for no good reason.

i had a bad afternoon
and a coworker who isn't a particularly close friend -
we've hung out a couple times
but we're not, you know, super close -
bought me a beer and welcomed me into her group of friends
and that little act of kindness meant
everything.

i'm a firm believer that a little kindness goes a long long way
and tonight was proof of that.

I'm in Salt Lake City to grade the AP Government exam!

By landscape alone this place beats Daytona Beach, where the AP reading was two years ago...and I have friends here this year! Life is good.

don't mess with elementary school teachers

Rebecca: remember when mom and i had to explain to you what a mammal is

me: shut up
i knew it had milk and bones
that is all i knew
what was i confusing it with?

Rebecca: dolphins
were confusing to you

me: can you see my confusion?

Rebecca: no
because i went to college

my fault

as you've probably figured, my fault was this:

women couldn't vote in 1896!

black americans couldn't really vote!

ahhhhhhhh!

(good work, dad!)

take my number (17 million) and divide it in half (8.5 million) for all the ladies who couldn't vote...then take off maybe 500,000 or a million black voters who were suppressed, and we're very close to the 7 million people who voted for mckinley and i really DID know what i was talking about!  (small victory.)

i restrained myself and didn't pull a HUGE NERD MOMENT and tell the trivia announcer that we weren't really so dumb as to think it was 17 million, we were just dumb enough to forget when women gained suffrage.

however, i am writing about this over the course of several days on my blog, so perhaps i had my huge nerd moment anyway.

trivia fail

the answer: mckinley!  (nice work, bill!)  we knew it couldn't be teddy roosevelt (who succeeded mckinley but was too young), and then taft and wilson didn't feel right either.  so we went to backwards to mckinley.  victory!

this left us tied for second place!  the tie-breaker: how many popular votes did mckinley win in the election of 1896?

we had one minute to come up with an answer.

we (i) said 17 million.  my logic: the doubling time of the population is 50-60 years, i think.  60 million people voted for obama.  that makes 30 million voting for the winner of the 1950 election...15 million in the 1900 election...somehow 17 million sounded right.

the answer was 7 million.  7!  horrors!  the other team said 1 million, so they were closer and won.

enormous frowny face.  we were NOT EVEN VERY CLOSE AT ALL.

30 seconds later i realized the error in my logic about how many people would have voted for mckinley.  where was my fault, readers?

what i'm listening to right now

after listening to it only once, i am already IN LOVE with brandi carlile's new album, bear creek, but i mean, OF COURSE.  i bought it this morning without previewing any tracks because people!  this is brandi carlile!  i love her voice, her band, the songwriting.  obviously i need to own the new album the day it comes out.

this will not be the last you hear about this album on this here blog.

brandi carlile, "100":

trivia success!

final question at trivia tonight: who was the last (most recent) us president who had fought in the civil war?

we did some intense figuring and got it right!  answer to come tomorrow.  if you want, guess in the comments (no cheating)!

i guess i should enjoy the atlanta weather now, even though it's pretty hot and muggy, as this is waiting for me starting june 21st:

oh, i will totally be seeing this movie (click "watch now" to watch the preview).

reasons why:
1. set in north carolina
2. looks hilarious
3. i heart politics
4. will most definitely be playing at the liberty theater in downtown north wilkesboro, as it stars zach galifianakis, wilkes central high graduate.  this will make it easy to see, as the local movie theater* in my hometown normally only shows PG-rated movies that i don't want to see...but they showed the hangover 2 in honor of their hometown star.  if they will show the hangover 2, they will show this movie.


*there is only one movie theater in my county, and it only shows 2 (usually bad) movies at a time.  to see other movies, one must drive 45 minutes, and that is lame.  come on liberty theater!  show the campaign!!

this weekend was a moving weekend!  mom and dad came into town and we helped thomas and lindsey move into their new house on saturday...and then on sunday friends came over to help me move most of my belongings.  but i'm not moving to new york until august!  to help explain, here's my summer timeline:

june 9-17 - salt lake city to grade the AP government exam

june 21-july 31 - england!

1st weekend in august - denver for mike's 30th birthday

then: i move home to north carolina with my parents

august 31 - i move into my dorm room at columbia!

this weekend was the only weekend my parents could come down to help me move, so we packed up all my furniture (i'll be sleeping in our guest room for the next couple weeks) and most of my belongings - what i have left will (hopefully) fit into my car when i drive myself home in NC in august.

sad empty bedroom with lots of dust in places where furniture used to be:

i tend to get really sad about moves - pit-in-my-stomach sad about leaving a place.  i'm making this move so slowly, though, that so far i'm doing okay.  the reality will set in at some point, of course...

(in other news, let's discuss how i kind of wish i could sit in front of my tv for the entirety of the olympics and just watch all the awesome events.  I LOVE THE OLYMPICS.  instead, i'll be working/playing, which is pretty awesome, too.  and i'll be in england for the first four days of the olympics!  so that will be pretty bad ass, too, even if i'll have to work a lot and my access to a tv will be unreliable.)

may: 14 & 15

this month my reading ranged from classy to trashy.


nightwoods, by charles frazier (classy.  charles frazier wrote cold mountain and thirteen moons, both amazing books, and this is his newest.  i bought it for mom for christmas and then promptly asked to borrow it...oops.  i did let her read it first!  i love frazier's books because they're set in the mountains of north carolina and because he has such a beautiful way with words.  and awesome plot lines.  this one revolves around a murder and mute twins, and i spent about 50 pages reading frantically because A Bad Thing was about to happen and i had to know if it was REALLY going to happen.  but if you've read cold mountain you know he's not afraid to let bad things happen.  this is a great book - i'd highly recommend it! - though the way frazier tells stories leaves you confused for a while until all the pieces come together.  so be prepared for a little bit of confusion.)

fifty shades of grey, by e.l. james (trashy.  i can't even believe i'm admitting to reading this book.  i read it for my book club!  this is my excuse!  that is all i will say.  shortest book review ever.)